28 Juillet, 2012

Sunday, Juillet 29, 2012, Chamonix, France

Frank, Dave and I went up the Aiguille Du Midi cable car to the top this morning. A great way to travel - from 3000 ft (elevation in town) to 12,600 in 20 minutes! We encountered a crisp 2 deg C with part sun and part clouds at Aiguille Du Midi station. We climbed (stairs, indoors mostly) and took photos from a half dozen different viewing platforms. The views of Mont Blanc were kind of like this:

Only much better. We do not have the means to connect our camera to the hotel PC, so our photos will likely not be posted until after we're back home.

After 3 hours up high we took the cable car down to the Plan de Aiguille (2300 meters), stopped for lunch at  Refuge du Plan de l'Aiguille, a very nice hut/restaurant, then hiked 2 hrs to the Mer de Glace (River of Ice).  From there we rode a cog train back down to Chamonix.

Tomorrow at 6 am our guide will meet us here at the Hotel l'Arve and we head off to the Eiger to start our guided climbing.   If all goes as planned we will summit the Eiger on Aug 1st. Then we start on the Matterhorn on Aug 2nd and summit it on Aug 3 (happy birthday KYH!).

While riding down in the in the cable car we talked with a nice couple from Telluride. They invited us to stay at their home if we go the the Telluride ski area - which they claimed has over 4000 ft vertical - the highest in the US.

I searched late in the day for an open store where I could buy some gaiters.   Nothing open, but I did run across a jazz guitarist performance that was out of this world.   The artist was Kahiki.   He played acoustic guitar.  The solo instrumental number I heard him play was jazz at its best - music that gives goosebumps.   Kahiki said he'd been touring Europe for the past 2 years.   I'll have to look up this guy's music when I get home.